On Sunday evening last His Honour the Sheikh-ul-Islam of the
British Isles (Abdullah Quilliam Effendi) delivered a lecture at the Liverpool
Mosque, his subject being ‘The Jews Under Christian Rule.’ Brother J. Bokhari
Jeffery presided, and there was a large attendance.

The Sheikh in the course of his lecture said:- During the Muslim occupation
of Spain the Jew shared every advantage with the Mussulman, but when the Christian
arms had become victorious and the Moors had retired across the Straits of
Gibraltar, the Jew found he had changed masters, and certainly not to his
advantage. To avoid persecution many Jews nominally professed Christianity,
albeit they remained Jews at heart, and in secret clung to their ancient faith.
To search out and punish these pseudo-Christians that most dreadful engine
of torture and oppression, the Inquisition, was devised. The horrors of that
dreadful tribunal are almost beyond human language to portray, and no human
fancy could imagine more terrible persecution and instruments of torture than
those devised and used by the Christian monks under Torquemada, the Chief
Inquisitor.

At first the situation of the Jews who had not apostatised was preferable
to that of those who had professed Christianity, but the flame of fanaticism,
diligently fanned by the priests, suddenly burst into a furious blaze, and
in the year 1492 a decree was passed that all Jews must leave Spain. Queen
Isabella was completely under priestly influence, and readily assented to
the scheme, but Ferdinand, her husband, through motive of policy rather than
humanity, long hesitated to put the decree in force. When at last, the dread
edict had gone forth, Arbanel, a Jew of the highest position and worth, a
man regarded almost as a second Daniel for his authority among his own race,
and the respect he had gained from the oppressors of his nation, managed,
like Esther of old, to penetrate into the presence of the sovereigns, and
cast himself at their feet before the royal throne. With all the eloquence
he could command, he implored that his people might not be driven forth from
the land they had so long occupied, and offered a bribe of 300,000 ducats,
that the decree might be recalled. Ferdinand appeared to be relenting, when
suddenly into the royal presence strode the gloomy form of Torquemada, the
Chief Inquisitor, clothed in his monkish robe, and wearing a crucifix. Giving
a contemptuous glance at the Jew, and a haughty look at the abashed rulers,
he held aloft the crucifix, with its figure of Christ attached thereto. ‘Judas
Iscariot,’ he said, in tones of biting sarcasm, ‘sold his master for 30 pieces
of silver, but the price has gone up, and I see you are ready to sell him
for 300,000. Here he is; take him and sell him.’ The appeal to religious bigotry
was successful, the Jew’s offer was refused, and the stern edict against the
children of Israel remained.

The story of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain is one of the most touching
episodes in the history of a race. The Hebrews, under Muslim rule, had come
to love Spain as a second Canaan, and even after enduring years of persecution
under their Christian rulers, they still loved its soil and were loath to
leave it. They visited the graves where the corpses of their ancestors were
mouldering in the dust, and with tears and lamentations bade them a long farewell.
Sometimes they removed the tombstones, and carried them with them in their
wanderings, so that the hand of the Gentile should not put them to a base
use after their departure.

Along every highway which led to the coast proceeded a melancholy procession
of Jewish people, with downcast eyes and heavy hearts, bearing with them such
portion of their worldly wealth as they were able to carry away. Bands of
Christian robbers lurked along the roads to attack them and deprive them of
such gold or other valuables as they possessed, and many who had been among
the richest in the land reached the seaports little better than penniless
wanderers. No Christian nation would receive them, and alone among the nations
of the world the Ottoman Turk welcomed them and gave them shelter and protection.

In Portugal also the Jews reaped their full measure of woe. Not only was
the order given for the expulsion of the Jews, but, to add to their bitterness,
their children were taken from them to be baptised and brought up as Christians,
until at last the Hebrew mothers in despair cast their babes into rivers and
wells, and then slew themselves.

The stories of massacres of the Jews in both Spain and Portugal seem almost
incredible, but are, alas, too true. The Israelite historian Graetz, in his
great work of eleven volumes, ‘Geschichte des Judenthums,’ thus portrays
the sufferings of his race: ‘Spain was full of the corruption of dungeons
and the crackling pyres of innocent Jews. A lamentation went through the beautiful
land which might pierce bone and marrow; but the sovereigns held back the
arm of the pitiful.’

‘Let the Christian, if he dare, attempt to justify such conduct,’ exclaimed
the Sheikh in his peroration. ‘The garments of the Christian are red with
the blood of the martyred Jew, but, praise be to God, the robes of the Muslim
are spotless as the new fallen snow in this particular.’